The Warrior and the Wolf
by ChickyGirl
Summary: The bluest of winter roses were settled onto a girl's head who was the ghost of a beloved woman long dead, and history had a happier ending.


**A/N: This will be my first Game of Thrones** **fic so I hope y'all like it!**

 **This was inspired by LadySmallwood08's story Queen of Love and Beauty, and I thought I should try it out cause I'm obsessed with Game of Thrones and A song of Ice and Fire… soo… here we go!**

Ned Stark looked over his children. Three heads of red paired with blue eyes all laughing and talking with the others at the main table of the otherwise empty Great Hall. Then to two bent heads leaning towards each other over his youngest son who reached up to touch each of their faces rather than smear his face with what food he could eat with so little teeth. Apart yet separate from all the others around them, the dark haired boy and girl who looked so much like himself talked quietly amongst the chatter of the others and Sansa's giggling.

"Oh!" his eldest girl said happily towards her mother, clapping her hands. "How I do love the stories of gallant knights in the tourneys of Kings Landing, crowning their truest love Queen of Love and Beauty."

At this sudden declaration the other children's attention was drawn towards Sansa whose cheeks blushed softly at how loud she must have talked, her eyes flicking to her mother who only looked on indulgently.

The girl sighed wistfully, her eyes looking off into the distance, "I would love to be loved so much as to be crowned by those beautiful blue winter roses."

"We don't have tourneys in the North, Sansa," Bran chirped, "We show our strength on the battlefield."

Ned looked to the small boy who peaked up to him at the corner of his eye in search of what he had said was the truth, his smile lighting up his face as Ned's solemn face lifted in praise at his words.

Robb laughed at his sister, his eyes twinkling to match the same blue as the desired roses as the other redhead's frown rose. "Tell you what Sans, if Father ever allows us to enter a tourney I would crown you my beautiful queen. "

"Me too!" Bran agreed, turning his head towards Jon, Arya, and little Rickon further down the table. "Who would you crown, brothers?"

Ned saw Catelyn instantly frown and stiffen as usual at the term directed towards his bastard son by his siblings. Covering her hand that rested on the table in preparation of the boy's answer, his own stormy eyes turned to meet the younger owner's who had turned to seek out the third pair in a young girl's face whose had bowed her head.

Everyone should have expected Jon's answer, and yet Ned still tried to keep a bout of sudden dread that had settled deep into his stomach from moving into his face.

"Arya."

Ned's hand tightened involuntarily where it rested on Cat's. A flash of silvery hair blowing in the wind amidst a suddenly quiet hundreds of people went through his mind, the bluest of winter roses being settled into a darkly curled girl's hair. Stray petals blowing in the wind were crushed and withered by time and space, never to regain their color as stormy eyes closed forever.

The silence was echoed as in that time so many years ago, as well as the surprise and adoration splashed on a similar younger girl's face. The quiet moment only broken by the baby's seconding.

"My Arya Queen!"

Walking through the Godswood towards the Heart Tree, a haunting laugh fills his ears as a deeper masculine one matches it. Quickening his pace, Ned left uneven tracks behind him in the snow on his way to where he had been a million times before. Slowing just behind the treeline forming a circle around the Sacred Weirwood, he watched the two children who matched him in everything but experience and years.

Arya stood in front of a kneeling Jon, tears in her eyes he had rarely seen from her since she was but a babe. That was the marvel of the relationship between his youngest daughter and the boy he had raised as his own out of love for the woman who was his mother. The woman who was now standing in front of him, reincarnated as his very own beloved and misunderstood little girl. Misunderstood in everything, by everyone, except by the bastard boy she had loved from the day she was but hours old and crying. Quieted only by a small finger and identical eyes to hers smiling down to her as she giggled in little Jon's arms.

"I now crown you my most beloved and treasured Warrior Queen of Love and Beauty now and forever."

The boy with a misplaced stain on his name placed the bluest of winter roses onto a darkly curled sister's braided hair. Arya, now shown how high in her brother's eyes she was placed, tackled him into the snow like the warrior queen she was and peppered his laughing face with kisses.

Their small direwolf pups imitated their humans, Nymeria yipping and jumping on her larger snowy brother who growled playfully, wrestling her into the deep snow.

"I'm your Warrior Queen, and you are my Wolf King of Winter."

Laughter ran like memories in the forest of the mind, and Eddard Stark smiled, hoping for happiness turned away one last time from history repeating itself and melted back into the cold that was their home.

The mystery knight with a shield painted with a white wolf's head on a black field topped with a red crown was the last man standing, surrounded in a crowd of Southern lords and ladies mixed with few Northerners.

The knight dressed in all black, dubbed as the Wolf King of Winter, accepted the crown of northern winter roses from the squire dressed in red on the end of his wolf pommeled sword. The crowd turned silent as the snarling helmet was taken away to reveal the face of the Hand of the King's bastard son. Northern and southern lords and ladies held their breath in preparation of who a man such as this would dare to love in a society such as they were surrounded.

His lithe body seemed to stalk fluidly towards the family whose name he did not share, imitating the animal of whose name he had been given years ago. No sound was made as the beautiful flowers were once again set upon the lap of a Stark girl, stray petals caught on the wind to regain the brightest blue that was ever seen as stormy eyes caught each other, never to let go again.

 **A/N: I love hearing everyone's thoughts and reviews are loved and appreciated!**


End file.
